Thinking Anew:I SAW ANOTHER young tree broken down by vandals. It was lying there, at the side of the path in a nice leafy part of town.
With a trunk that was about three inches thick, it had little chance against the combined onslaught of a several entities of a supposedly higher life form. I began to think about that tree. Maybe it would take root and recover? It might be a simpler form of life, but it is far more resilient than the marauding horde that dragged it to the ground and snapped its branches. Left alone it would have produced oxygen to clear the carbon monoxide of its attackers’ cigarettes.
It would have provided shelter from the wind and a nesting roost for birds.
Its roots would have soaked up the waters that will now add to the growing phenomenon of urban flooding. Nothing was gained from its destruction but quite a lot was lost.
It was a teenaged tree that was beginning to establish itself. Having survived the perils of life as a sapling it had survived better than many of its peers. Soon it would have produced new saplings. It saddened me to think that misunderstood youths had damaged a thing that was just like themselves. As they tore at the trunk did they even think that their action was a mirror to the actions that upset them most?
Probably not. After all, they live in a culture that destroys anything that isn’t obviously useable or immediate. As long as nobody is hurt it’s okay. But quite often the hurt comes later. Psychologists call it regret. It is, after all, normal that a reveller is not thinking about either the hangover or the liver damage as the party progresses and the drink flows. So much for being a higher life form! Christianity teaches that we are created in the image and likeness of God.
It prides the intellect and will that each and every one of us possesses.
Intellect and will are supposed to work in tandem just as body and soul or peace and justice do. Quite often the actions of our will operate away from the role of the intellect. We often remark that certain actions are mindless or pointless – then we move on and forget about it. Are we living in an epoch that has so much information that we confuse information with knowledge? There was a stake beside that broken tree.
In earlier times it had supported and protected the tender tree and now it was stuck with no purpose. The ties that bound it to its young charge were severed forever. And cut off from the support of its stoic guide, the tree, if it grows again, will survive but will probably not be as upright and straight as it could have been. Like so much else, it might
grow and be beautiful but
its lack of support will work
against it.
Isn’t it very much the same for us? How many examples can we think of where some higher form has cut us off from the support of friends, family, society and God? Of course we can grow a bit without them, but surely we grow better with them. Recent times must surely prove that our roots were in shaky soil.
Like a broken tree we grew again. But tethered to nothing other than profit and prestige we fell at the first storm. Maybe we should return to our proven supports before we try to stretch our roots out again.
The loveliest thing of all is that a tumbled tree is capable of growing again.
F MacE